From Morsi to Sisi: the evolution of targeting journalists in Egypt

One of the only
consistencies in Egypt, from the Mubarak era through to the SCAF period to
Morsi’s rule to the tumultuous summer of 2013, has been encroachments on press
freedom and attacks on journalists. But
there have been subtle shifts in how journalists have been targeted, and
attacks are becoming more systematic.

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Through last week's escalation of violence followed
by the declaration of a state of emergency in Egypt, journalists and media
organisations struggled to report the unfolding events as state forces used a
series of tactics to block and intimidate journalists. The mass
killings in Rabaa Al-Adaweya and Al-Nahda Squares on Wednesday by state
forces were widely reported in social media as divergent claims of the scale
and nature of the killings were issued by the Muslim Brotherhood and the new
government.

Building a picture of the events at the Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit in last week was distorted by a series of contested claims in the polarised media, from the unsubstantiated
report by state media of a scabies outbreak in Rabaa Al-Adaweya prior to the
violent break-up of the sit-in, to the claim by the Muslim Brotherhood that
nerve gas had been used on Muslim Brotherhood protesters on Wednesday. Often the conflicting claims have delineated
themselves by the media through which they are broadcast, as the voices in
public and state media have become increasingly divergent, while the state has in
turn focused its efforts on condemning ‘inaccurate’ ‘foreign’
media. The language
of ‘terrorists’ by some state media to describe pro-Morsi supporters at the Rabaa Al-Adaweya sit-in, with little to no footage of the hundreds of deaths in
the square stands in stark contrast to the reports by human rights
organisations such as Human Rights Watch that document
the excessive use of force against unarmed protesters.

Journalists in Egypt must operate in the midst of these
contested claims and fractured narratives as the political landscape becomes
increasingly polarised, whilst finding themselves increasingly under threat of
intimidation and violence. A report released
by the Committee to Protect Journalists Iast week details how both the Morsi administration
and the post-June 30th regime
have made concerted moves to intimidate journalists and media
outlets. The report notes, however, that
the intimidation of journalists has become more ‘systematic’ since the coup
that ousted Morsi.

The only consistency threading from the Mubarak era to the
events of this summer has been that – in one way or another – freedom of the
press has been encroached upon. Under
the SCAF transitional period following the ousting of Mubarak, freedom of
expression organisations made the case that self-censorship
was now the predominant barrier to press freedom, as early incidents of
harassment encouraged journalists to stop reporting negatively on SCAF’s
approach to the 2011 referendum and ‘handling’ of protesters. SCAF’s appointment of a military press
censor and raiding
of Al Jazeera offices were low points to press freedom during the early
transitional period. Under Morsi’s
period of rule, freedom of expression ebbed
and flowed. Last summer the editor
in chief of Al-Doustour newspaper was arrested
after the newspaper ran a series of articles on the negative impact of a likely
‘Islamicisation’ of the state under President Morsi, although it was Morsi
himself who made much fuss
over preventing him from facing charges.

Journalists were targeted during the constitutional
crisis and referendum of December 2012 as clashes between the Muslim
Brotherhood and opposition escalated. (Ironically,
a major concern of many journalists during this period was that Morsi’s constitution
gravely threatened freedom of expression, an issue which led to press
strikes in December 2012). In a
sense, the deterioration of the media mirrored the deterioration from
post-revolutionary optimism to precarity throughout Morsi’s period in power. The demise
of online English-language newspaper Egypt Independent during this period, amidst
accusations variously of political pressure and internal bad management, left
a significant gap in the landscape of rigorous news coverage as Morsi’s popularity continued
to wane.

As noted in the report by the Committee to Protect
Journalists, however, since the ousting of Morsi on June 30th, media
has become increasingly polarised just as journalists and freedom of expression
are increasingly under
threat. During the coup, state
security blocked access to parts of an enclave of a television studio, as well
as shutting down several stations either temporarily or indefinitely.

The weeks since June 30th have seen an escalation
of attacks on journalists hand in hand with intimidation of media groups,
starting with the chilling death of 26
year old photojournalist Ahmed Samir Assem by a sniper outside the Republic
Guard building in Cairo on 8th July.
The last week in Egypt was a low-point for the post-revolutionary
period, as record numbers of journalists were killed and injured. As security forces moved
in on the Rabaa Al-Adawiya sit-in, Egyptian journalist Ahmed Abdel Gawad,
who wrote for Al-Akhbar newspaper, was fatally shot in the vicinity, as was 26
year old Habiba
Ahmed Abd Haziz, who was on annual leave from her job at UAE’s The Gulf
News. The Committee to Protect Journalists, meanwhile, has called for an immediate investigation into the death of Sky
News camera man Mick
Deane who was shot dead in Cairo last week.

Both media organisations and press freedom organisations
began to raise the possibility that journalists were being systematically targeted
after a spate of assaults and threats from last Wednesday. Tarek Abbas of Al-Watan newspaper was reportedly
shot in the leg and eye, and Al Jazeera camera man Mohammed
Zaki was shot in the arm. The
Washington Post’s Abigal Hauslohner reported
that a police officer threatened to ‘shoot her in the leg’, while Mike Giglio
from The Daily Beast reported that he had been arrested and beaten by security
forces. Other journalists reporting
being detained by security forces include Brazilian journalist Hugo Bachega and
British journalist Patrick Kingsley.

Physical intimidation of journalists and attempts to jam the
signals of broadcasters operates
alongside legal actions to silence journalists – the Bureau Chief of Al Jazeera
Arabic, Abdel Fateh Fayed and broadcast engineer Ahmed Hassan have been accused
of ‘threatening national security’ and consequently placed under investigation
by the new government.

The latest proof that the position of journalists has
changed under the new regime came from the State Information Service who issued
a statement for ‘foreign correspondents’ late last week. Accusations in the SIS statement include the
charge that foreign media is ‘biased’ towards the Muslim Brotherhood and
does not shed light on terrorist acts that are perpetrated by the Brotherhood,
and ignoring the support that the Muslim Brotherhood is drawing from foreigners,
and as such are presenting a ‘distorted’ image of the current situation in
Egypt to their audiences. Such a message
hints at the significant difference in how the murders in the Rabaa Al-Adaweya
sit-in were reported by state media compared to independent, and Muslim
Brotherhood-backed, media organisations.

The attempt in the statement to divide between foreign and
domestic media is not the only fracture cutting across the media landscape, as
the figures of the mass killings last week continue to be contested. But it is the latest in a series of attempts,
by a series of Egyptian regimes, to curtail press freedom -- and without freedom of the press, the true scale of the tragedy in Rabaa Al-Adaweya may never be known.

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